The real issues were not much discussed--certainly not by
the Whigs. In reality the results were due to the general prostration
of business and the utter discredit that had fallen upon General
Jackson's pet bank system. The Independent Treasury System, as it was
termed by Democrats, or the Sub-Treasury System, as it was called by
the Whigs, had not been tested.

The country was tired of experiments and all the evils, which were
many, that then afflicted the people, were attributed to the
experiments of General Jackson in vetoing the bills for the recharter
of the United States Bank and for the institution of the pet bank
system. In truth the country was wedded to the idea that the funds of
the government should be so placed that they could be used to
facilitate business. That idea and the practice arising from it were
full of peril. In the infancy of a country, when the resources are
inadequate, a national bank, assuming that it is managed honestly and
wisely, may be an important aid, but time being given, it will
inevitably become a political machine in a country, like the United
States, where the political aspirations of the people are active and
the temptations to seek the aid of the money power are always great.
Even in modern time, with a surplus of millions in the banks of the
city of New York, for which no proper use could be found, there are
indications of a purpose to return to the pet bank system under
another name.

Gen. Harrison, the nominee of the Whig Party, was then sixty-seven
years of age by the record, but the public opinion credited him with
several more years. His mental powers were not of superior quality,
and his life had not been of a sort to develop his faculties. He had
done good service in the Indian wars of the frontier and as commander
in the battle of Tippecanoe he had won a reputation as a soldier.
During the war of 1812, he commanded the army of the Northwest, and
with honor. He had had a seat in each House of Congress, he had
represented the government at the capital of a South American Republic,
and all with credit, and all without distinction. His career had been
sufficiently conspicuous to justify his friends in eulogies in the
party papers and speeches; and neither as good policy nor just
treatment should his opponents have been betrayed into criticisms of
his military and civil life. The Democrats were unwise enough to raise
an issue upon his military career, and the res